Meanwhile, Northern Trust’s $1.5 billion in bailout funds attracted attention this week after the Web site TMZ.com reported that the company spent millions of dollars to host a “series of lavish parties and concerts” in Los Angeles last week as part of its sponsorship of a golf tournament. Eighteen members of the House Financial Services Committee quickly demanded that the bank repay the government what it had “frittered away on these lavish events,” but the bank defended the events as a valid marketing strategy.

As lawmakers race to dump their contributions from Stanford (well, most of them), stubborn Washington-Stanford ties keep popping up. Relatives of Vice President Joe Biden ran a $50 million fund that was marketed exclusively by Stanford-controlled companies, reports the Wall Street Journal. And TPMMuckraker notes that Stanford used an “obscure” nonprofit, the Inter-American Economic Council, to curry favor with lawmakers and push for looser restrictions on offshore banking. One beneficiary of Stanford and IAEC’s generosity was former Rep. Bob Ney, who showed some love for Stanford in the Congressional Record.

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